The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1887-07-06
SOME MEASLE STORIES.
philosopher Arp Comforts the Children
with Thrilling Tales.

with Thrilling Tales.
Bill Arp in Atlanta constitutional
The measles have come again the
measles and the meanest sort of mea-
sizes. Eight of the flock have long
since graduated in all the infantile dis
eases and have their diplomas, and now
Carl and Jessie are down and it takes
lots OF nursing, for they are real sick.
They are tender hearted now, very,
and want their mother or me close by
or in sight all the time. L sit between
their two beds and tell them stories
and have to hold hand of each to
keep them even. When / lovingly fon-
die one | have to fondle the other, too,
for they are jealous. The old stories
have to be repeated. There is the
beaver-dam story and the runaway mig
ger and the black pony and Tip from
the Yankees and my school butter
scrape and some others that l have a
patent on, and have brought them all
along down the corridors of time and
cheered many weary hour for our
restless. eager children.
Then / told these measly children
about my going to Boston with nv
father and mother and brother when /
was only eight years old. How we took
passage III a sail vessel from Savan-
nah, and were out forty days at sea,
and had awful storms, and at last were
run into by another vessel in a fog as
We neared the harbor, and how our
own vessel went down, and the passen-
gers all had to get aboard the other
vessel, and how my mother would not
consent to come home 10y sea, and my
father had to bu, p carriage and two
black mares, and also bought black
pony for m, brother and me to ride
on, and how IN fathers sister came
home with us and Mr.. Maltb e. who
was his schoolmate, and so there were
fo,r In the carriage and two DO on
the pony, and we came all the wa, to
Georgia and it took over two months,
and we never crossed q railroad nor
saw one, for there was not one to cross,
and how / had to ride behind most of
the time, and one day as we saw some
wild grapes up in Il vine over our
heads, my brother got me to stand up
on the pony's back so as to reach them,
off and left me hanging there, and |
got mad and cried and waited for the
carriage to come up, and L told on him,
yes | did, and they let me ride in the
carriage until got over my pouts.
Then L told these measly children
that my good father was dead and my
dear mother was dead and my brother
was dead, and SO was my aunt and Mr..
Maltbie and the two mares and the
pony, and the carriage was worn out
and gone, and L only was left. Then
they put their measly arms around my
old neck and kissed me so lovingly
that L was glad l was not dead.
Mrs. Arp flies round all the day fix
ing up something. She makes them
chicken soup, and tastes it and seasons
it and tastes it again, and she fixes up
toast and gelatine, and she feels of
their feet forty times q day to see if
they are warm, and she doses them
with onion juice, and she keeps cam
phor flannel on their breasts to make
their old measly cough easier, and she
keeps the room rk TO keep the light
from hurting their measly eyes, and
away in the night she is slipping and
sliding around Ike q ghost and putting
her hand on their measly foreheads to
see if they haven't got fever or some
thing. Such is life in this measly
world, and we must take it as it comes,
and be calm and serene, measles or no
measles. She is reading old Robinson
Crusoe to them now, but by and by she
will stop. and then they will be yelling
for me. L thought that our crop was
laid by, but it has got the measles, just
like the cotton sometimes takes the
rust